Your home base equipment, conceal or install

[NorthernRaider]

Your Home Base Equipment, Conceal or Install or both?
If your supplies, kit, resources and materials cannot be easily spotted by curious eyes passing by on foot or in vehicles then those supplies are less likely to be snaffled by thieves after TSHTF.
Screening planting, fencing and the wise siting of your equipment will reduce the risk of theft or damage by opportunist thieves, and if your neighbours don’t know about your prepping supplies they are far less likely to come asking for you to “share” with them after TSHTF
Look at your preps and chances are most of you are likely to have or are intending to get a
Solar Panel PV system of one sort or another
Ham or CB radio as its associated bits
Wood burning stove and a mountain of fuel
Bottle gas powered auxiliary kit plus lots of bottles of butane / propane
Maybe a micro wind turbine or two
A rain water harvesting and storage system
Water Filter System like a Berkfield
Aquaponics kit
Bee Hives
Chicken coups

So let us be clear about this you absolutely DO need to be very comfortable and familiar with all of the above mentioned gear, and you NEED to know how it works, how to take care of it and how to assemble / disassemble it as well to a very high degree of competency.

Naturally I encourage you to practise with your prep gear and to put it up to see if it functions properly in the location you have chosen for it,

BUT

Should you leave it up and assembled or should you take it apart and put it away until SITX occurs?

Do you really want to advertise the fact that you have off grid power, clean water, radio comms, heating supplies etcetera to your neighbours? Putting the PV panels out and leaving the Ham Antenna up is convenient of course, but is it WISE?

We all are going to have different answers pertaining to the different items of kit EG no one can see my Berkfield filter on my windowsill and my CB antenna is INSIDE my loft ( for now, yes I know I lose range),

Could you conceal your radio antenna or hide it, or use an internal antenna?

Can the PV panels be mounted on a free standing frame or trailer out of sight rather than bolted to your rooftop?

Can your log pile and gas bottle collection be hidden in the garage / outhouse/ shed at the bottom of the garden, or screened off with judicious planting

Can you guerrilla garden you food plants (plant them intermixed and in random patterns as though they were simple ornamental plants rather than in rows this highlighting them as likely food plants)

Do you REALLY need five water butts connected together now instead of just using one for now and keeping the other five out of sight until needed?

Is the priceless kit stored in your garage out of sight when you open the doors?

Can you stick to burning only very dry low odour wood for now instead of smelly instantly noticeable coal products that advertise the presence of off grid fuel supplies?

As is the case with well-designed bug out vehicles our homes should ideally follow the Gray Man principle of a low visual signature and not stick out like a sore thumb, so where as the best BOVs keep all their bits n pieces inside the body of the vehicle out of sight, then at least until your household stuff is needed perhaps it should be kept safely stored away out of sight of prying eyes?

[Midnitemo]

All my kit is man portable incase we have to relocate to one of the other family homes in the vicinity....truth be told her indoors youngest brother has the best house for a bug in/mother inlaws is a close second and mine third.

[SlyUrbanFox]

Living in a terrace in town means at least 30 other houses overlook my garden. The water butt is all they'll see. Everything has to go in the basement. I got fed up with tripping over everything down there so invested in some decent shelving and was amazed how much space it liberated. Plastic crates fill the shelving, each clearly marked with its contents(food,fuel,clothing,camping,comms,etc)
No family or friends ever go in the basement or have any idea what is down there. I'm aware all my eggs are in one basket so to speak, which is why the basement is off limits to everyone. I am considering getting a second water butt in the basement to bring everything within the house. I don't want to lose 800 litres to thirsty neighbours!

[NorthernRaider]

Know what you mean about shelving, I just bought another two sets of metal shelving from Markro, on offer at £17.99 instead of £34

[Scythe13]

Can you not simply install things in a stealthy way?

For example, have the antenna running along the guttering vertically up a pipe or horizontally along a gutter line or roof ridge?

The same with loads of other things, you can install them, but keep what they are hidden. What's the expression, hiding in plain sight? Why not just do that? Permaculture style gardening, making it look like a mess, when really it's all edible. Our front garden is a bit of a mess, but there are 12 plants you can eat in it, e.g. spinach, kale, etc.

[CharlesHarris]

While not the ideal antenna, I've rigged insulated field telephone wire to a strain relief, connected it to the HF-SSB radio and trailed it behind a moving vehicle as tail end Charley in a convoy, and maintained contact with our HQ during a 200km troop movement.